


Friendship is a Deadly Game

by bloodasthickasink



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Don't worry Molly and Persephone aren't going to fight over Sherlock or w/e, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Lots of discussions of dead bodies, Murders and discussion of murders, Slow Burn, We love Molly Hooper in this house and we want her to have more female friends, just not written in the second person, one of those OFC is a stand in for the reader kind of deals, rating will change in later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:52:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodasthickasink/pseuds/bloodasthickasink
Summary: Sherlock Holmes never had friends.Or so Jim Moriarty thought.Two people prove him wrong. One was John Watson. The other was from the US, one Dr. Laura "Persephone" Moore.Dr. Moore wouldn't be Sherlock's friend, or alive, once Moriarty was through with her.





	Friendship is a Deadly Game

**Author's Note:**

> This idea had been gnawing at me for a little bit. I'm hoping that people will like it enough/find it interesting enough.

Molly is how he found out the most interesting piece of news. He hasn’t given up the charade of Jim from IT yet. He’s still waiting for the perfect moment to introduce himself to Sherlock, waiting and planning. He knows he’ll make his move soon. He has to, otherwise he’ll go crazy from boredom. Ideas are constantly spinning around and around and around in his head, and the longer he waits, the worse it gets. The worst part is he can’t act on them, not until the right moment.

Which is why Molly completely blindsides him with the news. The two of them were curled up on Molly’s couch, cuddling. He knew something was off because of the way she was acting. She was easy to read even before Moriarty decided to use her as a pawn, and now she was practically an open book. If he wanted to, he most likely could be 20 or 30 or even 50 steps ahead of her. Not that he wanted to do such a thing to her; he had grown oddly fond of her.

Eventually, Molly broke. He didn’t have to say a word. She just broke.

“Sherlock has a friend from the States over.” Molly tried to keep the notes of sadness out of her voice, tried to keep her tone conversational. 

“Friend?” Jim from IT’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “I thought he ‘didn’t have friends’…?”

Molly took a deep breathe. “He does, apparently.” He could tell she was trying so hard to keep a bitter note out of her voice. Jim from IT placed his hand on Molly’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. Jim Moriarty curled his fingers and dug them into the palm of his other hand so hard that he could feel the crescent-shaped marks being imprinted into his skin.

“Well, it’s not like he called this person a friend, is it?” Bland, normal, disgusting Jim asked, concern written all over his face. Molly bit down on her bottom lip, and he could see something in her eyes.

“He did call her that, though.” Her voice cracked, and the charade of himself moved forward to wrap her in a hug. “He introduced her to me and called her his friend. He called her his friend and just called me ‘Dr. Hooper’.”

“I’m so sorry.” He muttered into her hair. “I know it must hurt. But just because he doesn’t call you his friend doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you.” He stated the last bit because, well, that’s what boring, doting, disgusting, sappy, lovesick Jim from IT would say.

The thought made Moriarty just as unhappy as Molly. It churned around his head during the rest of the time he spent with Molly, spun around in circles as he left, and openly mocked him once he got back to his current operating area.

Sherlock Holmes has made another friend.

Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, the only one who could ever compliment his genius, had made another boring, average, stupid _friend_.  
Moriarty can’t help the snarl that leaves him. He throws everything off his desk, sweeping all of the equipment and computer and papers to the floor with a loud crash. He paces about the room, swearing and muttering and raging. First John Watson, and now some… some twit from the US? He slams his fists down on the table repeatedly. The desk shakes with each hit. 

How did they even meet? When did this even happen?

The thought makes him stop cold.

“Yes,” He muses to himself as he begins pulling what he needs off the floor. “How did they meet?”

It mostly likely was through the internet. Sherlock hadn’t left for the US as far as he was aware. He would know if the other did. Humming to himself, Jim Moriarty began pulling up the files and sifting through the information he needed. He’d bugged Sherlock’s computer a long time ago, so it was easy enough to find what websites the detective had been on recently. The process doesn’t take too long. 

They met through a discussion board that talked about unsolved cases and serial killers. Everything about the site screamed Sherlock. Idly, Jim scrolled through the posts. His mind began to piece a plan together as he collected the information.

Of course Sherlock would be on the sort of website to troll people. Moriarty doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Sherlock would have to prove his brilliance to as many people as possible. He scans through all of the comments. Most of the replies were people responding to the goading. One, however, stuck out. He paused, hovering his mouse over the comment.

The comment seemed innocuous at first, but what made him pause was the response below it. This commenter had pointed out something that Sherlock had deemed inconsequential. When the detective replied telling this anonymous person so, they simply wrote:

_We’ll find out soon enough. I’m hoping to be able to get a look at the autopsy report. Maybe I’ll be able to convince them that another one needs to be done._

That was odd.

He clicked on the profile and dug deeper. The profile led him to a case, which lead him to a name. This name was attached to other cases.

“Found you~” He hums in delight. “Little Shirly thought he could hide you from me, but I found you.” His grin turned positively sinister.

Dr. Laura Moore, forensic pathologist. More commonly known as Persephone by her friends. One of the best, if not the best, forensic pathologists out there. She’d gained quite a reputation over the years, namely because she refused to have be testimony be bought. She gave the evidence as it was, despite what law enforcement wanted her to say. She criticized the justice system and law enforcement heavily. 

He didn’t really care about that.

What he cared about were three things. The first one was that within the first five years of her work, she had been so good at analyzing a body that the killer attempted to kill her. Apparently, this would-be serial killer thought that Dr. Moore had given the police enough evidence to figure out who he was. Somehow, she managed to survive and get the police in time. So she was at least proficient enough to give him or his men a challenge if they tried to kill her.

Two was that she was right about the case she and Sherlock had been arguing about on the forum. Little miss Persephone had managed to get to do an autopsy on the body, and it turned out her theory led the officers working the case in the right direction. Supposedly, they had captured the suspect, and he had a trial date coming up soon. So she was smart, more than he thought.

The third and final one was that this Dr. Laura Moore had been able to link several murders to some of his men that he kept in the US. He didn’t really do too many dealing over there, but he did keep some ties just in case. 

So, this woman was not only smart and resourceful, but she was also a giant pain that could ruin him.

Well well well.

“Persephone, I do think you and I are overdue for a chat.”


End file.
